Musing: The Short Life of Influencers

We have a seen a number of people in the influencer recently taking jobs at vendors.

Keith Townsend is the latest and I wish him the very best.

I'm not saying if you participate in @TechFieldDay you'll find a new job. But the correlation between the number of TFD delegates starting new jobs in the past month can't be a fluke. You want to know what it takes to be a delegate? DM me. I'll help or give as much advice I can.

More Influencers

Participating on social media, building a public profile and becoming an ‘influencer’ is mega-fun and deeply rewarding at a personal level. Travelling around to big events, getting the latest information is much more fun than slugging it out in the trench warfare of Enterprise IT vs ITIL.

For most people, the energy needed to keep posting content while working and, you know, life is a serious effort. Writing blog posts on a regular basis take time, confidence and effort.

The time and ‘life energy’ that you put into a being an influencer can improve your career. Recruiters exist to find people like you, when employers can find you without the middle man you win. Social Media has a its problem but it can be a new pathway to career advancement, offer you new choices.

And you will learn a heck of a lot. If nothing else, you can take your improved communication skills, the new knowledge and insights back to your old job and maybe just enjoy that a little bit more.

The Good News

Anyone can become an influencer. You don’t need permission to start writing that blog. It can cost nothing with free hosting on WordPress. Start simple, practice the process, learn from the experience, adapt as needed and publish. Keep publishing and it won’t take long for people to notice you.

We need more influencers. I hope you start today.

About Greg Ferro

Human Infrastructure for Data Networks. 25 year survivor of Corporate IT in many verticals, tens of employers working on a wide range of networking solutions and products.

Host of the Packet Pushers Podcast on data networking at http://packetpushers.net- now the largest networking podcast on the Internet.

Comments

Thanks for the encouraging post Greg, good stuff. I started my blog 8 years ago, and I’m still getting after it. It takes a while to build up, but all of a sudden your stats on up on autopilot it seems.